


Expected to Give

by pettiot



Category: Dragonriders of Pern, Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Gender and Sexuality, Pern fusion, Worldbuilding, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-08-20
Updated: 2010-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:47:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23228845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettiot/pseuds/pettiot
Summary: Ffamran is a dragonrider and Fran is his queen.
Kudos: 1





	Expected to Give

Fran was so ready to rise.

Gildenfire glory, but she _glowed_ , fit to challenge the early morning sun itself, a strange pulsing depth to her scales that Ffamran had not seen on her before. He'd known her readiness from the inside out, the dreams she'd unconsciously shared with him growing sharper, more demanding, sheets stuck to his belly in the mornings no matter how early he tried to wake. Ffamran completely avoided his own knowledge of _knowing_ Fran's readiness, but here in their bathing bay, with his too-small broom moving rhythmic over gold-glowing proof, Ffamran couldn't ignore it any more.

Fran gleamed unbelievably golden. Ffamran wondered if he looked paler than the bubbles that coated her.

Pausing for breath, Ffamran pushed back the wet tangle of his fringe, regarding his lathered queen. After a long-ago jaunt at frothing waterfalls, within the walking reach of a still-grounded, still awkward queen, Fran decided she wanted all her bathes to have bubbles. Ffamran had been happy to oblige, raiding his old Hold's halls for something that would foam without damaging Balfonheim Weyr's oceanic inlet. No queen dragon had ever grown to Fran's size: she was so large Ffamran couldn't manage the time for more than one bath a week on his own and couldn't make use of the rock pools within the Weyr grounds. This beachside bath was a compromise, their time alone, made special with him and her alone, lots of bubbles, and a broom.

Despite the morning chill, Ffamran felt like he sweated torrents. He was upset that he was upset, wrecking her bath, and upset that Fran knew it.

A tail tip as thick as his thigh brushed along his spine with Fran's usual delicate touch. Ffamran staggered, then arched back into the pressure, muscles aching with his efforts. Fran's neck curved, so graceful, well-shaped skull swinging in his direction. Only one eye was open, spinning, lazy with her contentment; it was warming up, she was covered with bubbles, and he was nearby. She saw no need for upset.

She latched on to the tail of his distress. _I am too big for you?_

Ffamran used his broom as a prop for one elbow, leaning on it instead of Fran. It always felt wrong to use her like a wall. 'You're perfect for you. Never mind me.'

Fran hummed, a rumble deep in her throat; Ffamran felt the sound settle at the base of his spine and clench.

_I do mind you. Fran's rider, and Ffamran's dragon. How could I not mind you?_

She laughed, more than the amusement other dragons showed; laughter was something no other dragon did. Ffamran rolled his eyes – she was punning. That was definitely something no other dragon did.

'It's the broom,' he explained, as though deflecting his irritation would work with her, 'too sharding short, too sharding small! Whoever had our hole in the wall before us must have been half my height.'

Fran focused both eyes on him. She narrowed her lids, suspicious, such a human expression. Ffamran was struck again with how different Fran was from the other dragons. So closely connected with their riders' minds, what need did they have for the visual comfort of familiar expressions? Was her difference here his fault, too?

 _You've been using that broom since we earned our home from the Weyrleader._ A tongue licked out and knocked Ffamran's prop out from under his elbow. Behind him, Fran let her tail drop back into the water, giving him another salty shower he didn't need. _One full Turn. You would have found another broom had this been the source of your concern. Perhaps you should. I itch, as though from the inside out. The bristles are blunt._ A huff of disappointment. _And the bubbles don't last long enough. They used to._

'You used to be smaller,' Ffamran pointed out.

Another smile, combination of nostrils and eye-ridges and mind. _So did you._

'At least you've stopped growing.' Ffamran hesitated. 'You know you're going to rise soon, Fran.'

Ffamran could only hope no one else had noticed. Dragonriders were worse gossips than the drudges at Archades Hold.

Fran submerged her nostrils and blew a geyser. _Yes. I feel it. It is warm inside me, like my sunning ledge after the sun, a dawn on the horizon. It has been so many Turns of walking, but dragons are made to fly. I look forward to it._

I'm so glad someone is, Ffamran nearly said, but sarcasm was a nasty thing to use on a dragon. Especially on Fran. Fran, who could use metaphors and who listened to his poetry, who was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

'Why now, Fran? Six years you haven't felt the urge to rise, but this Turn you do?'

Fran was so happy. His irritation – no, Ffamran could be honest about his, his _fear_ was something she shouldn't have to feel. Pern's largest gold rose onto her hindlegs and stretched herself to the sun, a triumphant salute. Her wings looked ready to carry even her size, the shadow they cast enough to daunt an entire town.

 _It took me until last Turn to reach my full growth. I should not have to rise before I am ready. It would have hurt me._ Fran turned and lunged for the shore. She left the water clouded with disturbed sand, Ffamran struggling for balance against the resultant tidal backlash. Well, that was the end of the last bubbles, and of his chance to find his broom. _And this Turn, I am ready to rise. Why are you not pleased? You were upset when the headwoman said you were to blame that I would not fly. Now I will fly. You are not to blame._

Ffamran could remember that episode sharply enough, he had no need of a reminder. Elza had this skill of sniping in the most pleasant, most concerned of tones: she was only asking out of _concern_ for her _Weyr_. He was the only man to ever ride a breeding queen, and the whole of Balfonheim Weyr wondered what he was doing so wrong that Fran hadn't yet risen, one Turn out of the shell, two Turns, four Turns, six. Six Turns, and Fran still couldn't fly. How, why, was he holding Fran back?

Six Turns of Ffamran learning not to _hear_ conversations that raised the issue. Elza would be gloatingly happy to see Fran was going to rise, Ffamran supposed; another breeding dragon would make her headwoman of the most successful Weyr in Pern, and Fran would be useful at long last. As though Pern's overcrowded cave systems and extremely overcrowded skies even _needed_ another breeding queen and her gigantic clutch of eggs.

There was nothing Ffamran could do about Fran rising. There was nothing he should do, either; this was right for Fran, as right as her size, gold scales, and having wings.

_But you are still upset._

'It's political.' Ffamran scuffed his feet through the water, trying to find the broom. Politics usually bored Fran. Maybe she wouldn't ask again.

Squatting on the beach, Fran glared at him. Ffamran heaved a dragon-sized groan and explained.

'Draklor Hold's just declared another one of the volcanoes off South as officially dead. That means there's a new Weyr that can be established. The harpers told us about it a month ago, you were probably asleep or complaining about being hungry. They said: the next queen to rise, North or South, will be the one to found the new Weyr, but everyone thought it would be one of Archades' junior queens -- No, Fran, don't roll! Oh, don't you dare roll – I just spent the last two hours washing you, ungrateful-- You're rolling on my _clothes_ , come _on!_ '

Spine to the beach and claws waving aimlessly at the sky, Fran wriggled vigorously. Enough, as Ffamran knew from experience, to bury his clothes beyond recovery, and to get sand thoroughly ingrained against and under her scales. He would have to wash her again to get it all out. He growled mentally, as much like a dragon as he could imitate, visualising the gigantic cranky blush-scaled dragon he would be; he even topped it with a coxcomb of hair, sparkling chains dangling from his dragon-self's ear holes. The sound of Fran's hysterical laugh appeared in his mind, her wriggle turning into a worm-like squirm that even looked like laughter. It was enough to make him grin. For a moment.

 _But this is good, love! To win a new Weyr, to have all that space! Not cause for worry. We need space, more than is here. Here, you have no comfort, and my couch, my perch, both are too small. And I am tired of walking. I will be able to fly!_ Fran turned her muzzle through the sand and blew soft air at him, almost a sigh. _No, now you are hurting more. This is not good, to have a new Weyr? Why is this not good, Fran's unhappy rider?_

'Because your first flight is not going to be about you and the best bronze of Balfonheim, a bronze that you and I know.'

 _Sometimes it is not. I am not worried._ A sudden pride. _Look at my wings, love. Larger than Rikken's and Beruny's together. Only the best will be able to catch me._

Ffamran visualised a soft blanket falling over _that_ part of his mind, a fabric sheer like some of the finest silks so it wouldn't hide the shape of his thought – Fran would notice a solid barrier, would be frightened by it. All Ffamran wanted to do was obscure details. Fran could know he was worried, no way to avoid that, but he couldn’t let her know why.

'But your flight will be open to all the dragons on Pern. This is the first new Weyr in a century, and the rider whose dragon flies you will be Weyrleader. Everyone has the right to try.'

Shimmering silk, such a flimsy a curtain to hide the image in Ffamran's mind, of one thousand bronze wingspans blackening the sky, of one thousand lean, hard bronze riders surrounding him, sweating and eager and thinking of nothing but sex, bullish and pulsing half insane with their dragon's overriding lust. Shimmering silk, layer after layer of it, ghosted like gossamer over the shape of his mind. Fran kept wriggling, deep enough to reach wet sand now, making rumbling noises of contentment. She hadn't noticed his veils coming down. Ffamran wondered if she was even listening to him. She wouldn't be, if he was boring her.

 _I hear you, always. You’re hiding._ A spike of confusion. _No. You want to hide?_

Ffamran had only just rediscovered the broom. He almost dropped it again.

 _But I am too large to hide, love_.

'Oh, love, love, I don't want to stop you rising.' Not when half of Pern already wondered if Ffamran was doing exactly that, _whoever heard of a man riding a gold!_. Or at least, one who didn't want to identify as a woman. But he was not so cruel or so selfish: Fran itched, Ffamran could feel it, had felt it for the past few nights, and he didn't want to be the kind of rider that would tell her she couldn't scratch. 'It's what you need to do. It's just –' Ffamran knew his excuses were completely inapplicable to a dragon, but he said it anyway. 'I want it to be good for you. Not something political. All those horrible old bitter bronzes, all those horrible old men who just want to be Weyrleader and never got their chance.'

 _You could hide me, if you wanted. I would hide for you._ Sand-crusted nostrils turned his way, a torrent of love trying to make the knot in his mind unravel. _We could go to the storm in the North, in the cold, the dark._

'Beloved. You would still rise, and then where could I hide the largest queen to ever grace Pern with her beauty?'

With a great shower of white sand and dripping mud, Fran rolled to her feet, butted him in the stomach with a head as large as he was. Ffamran grabbed her with both arms to save himself from falling. He turned the gesture into her favourite caress, rubbing the bone of his forearm along eye-ridges to make her purr.

 _I know where we could hide. The largest queen on Pern could hide behind the largest dragon on Pern, and not even her tail would be seen._ A indecipherable thought rode through the waves of love. Confusion. Worry. Fear of solitude. His or hers, his and hers, theirs. _Vossler would protect us, beloved._

Ffamran rubbed, absently. Vossler would, too, and could, not even a bronze would dare that magnificently surly brown. If Vossler's rider would let him play guardian. And his rider might have let him, if Fran's flight wasn't so political. A painfully canny lad, Vossler's rider.

'If only it was as easy as running—'

Overhead, coloured flashes caught Ffamran's eye, interrupted him: dragons, a lot of them, winking out of _between_. From the size, it could have been an exploration squad returning from the third continent, even though Ffamran hadn't thought there was a squad scheduled to return so soon. He could be mistaken: he was just a junior queen rider here, and Balfonheim Weyr was too large to for him to keep a track of everyone's flight schedules. Ffamran watched, desperately counting: it _must_ be a squad returning, except the dragons were all greens and blues and browns, he couldn't see any bronzes---

He was wrong, there were two bronzes. Not enough for an exploration squad, two too many to be anything but a threat. They came out of _between_ at the very end of what Ffamran realised was a diplomatic escort. The bronze riders must be high up in some other Weyr's hierarchy to warrant this much of an escort.

Ffamran's eyes were sharp, and he knew dragons better than he knew their riders, but the newcomers were too far for him to pick out details. He _knew_ , though, a mind raised in dismal Draklor Hold putting the pieces together: one bronze would be from Archades Weyr, sending their best, their most ambitious. The second would be from Rabanastre Weyr, most likely, to have arrived so close to the Archadians. Someone else must have noticed Fran glowing this morning and spread the word. The early dragons wouldn't necessarily catch the worm, but they could certainly try to win her preferences in advance.

Elza. Only the headwoman would have dared stick her nose into Ffamran's private cave. Nosy, nosy Elza, poking around in people's most private places.

 _Basch is here._ Fran arched towards to the sky. She looked so ready to fly! _And Gabranth. Hello hello, hello hello!_

She was so happy to see her friends, Ffamran felt like hitting himself. Veils, lots of veils; Ffamran swaddled his mind tightly, like the ill-formed thing it was.

 _Hello, Ffamran._ Basch spoke first, gravelly with an amusement that had not changed since his hatching, cracking free from the shell he had shared with his brother. An amusement no doubt necessary to deal with the rider that Basch had managed to Impress.

 _My rider sends a greeting to his future Weyrwoman_ , said Gabranth. The arrogance, Ffamran knew, and the _insult_ , came entirely from the rider. Ffamran kept his retaliatory comment under tight rein. Poor Gabranth had enough criticism to deserve more, the smaller of the pair; twinned dragons were rarely viable and as one of the more frequent mutations, everyone had waited so long and so obviously for Gabranth to die, his stubbornness in the face of that had to be forgiven.

'Come on, love,' Ffamran said, distantly, 'we'd better get back in the water. You should look your best for your boys, and you've got sand all over you again.'

Fran shook her wings wide and bugled a welcome, twice echoed, flapping to stir up a storm. Blinking watering eyes, Ffamran nearly missed seeing the large blue that slipped out of _between_ , far enough behind the two escorts that the arrival so close was incidental – or rather, Ffamran thought, looking at Fran's gleaming bulk as she waddled back into the bay, not so incidental.

With a horrible sinking feeling, Ffamran recognised that blue. The exact shade of blue to match Harper Hold. Elza was evil. Ffamran wondered what he'd ever done to the headwoman to deserve this. He decided he would ask her, in a very loud voice, and repeatedly, if necessary.

Fran froze. _Threat! Where! I love you! I always love you!_

'I always love you,' Ffamran said. He controlled himself, the undirected rage, binding it until it became a nothing. 'It's not so bad, Fran, truly. It's just, well, the Masterharper's arrived.'

Her aggressive hiss sputtered into confusion. _But you laugh at the Masterharper? And sing with him? Not kill?_

'Ordinarily.' Waves licked around his ankles as Fran wallowed. Oh, he so looked forward to seeing her fly, six Turns of life together: he so looked forward to flying! But it needed _this_ for her to learn her wings? 'I just didn't think our mutual loss of virginity would make the news rounds.'

 _Bubbles,_ Fran said, as submerged as she could get in a bay this shallow. _Beloved. I need you, I love you, I always love you, but I need you now, and I need more bubbles. We must think later, after food, after bath, after lots of oil._ A soft little whine. _I itch_.

* * *

It was all V'yne's fault that Ffamran had gone anywhere near a Hatching Ground.

V'yne's bronze Bahamut had died years before Ffamran knew the rider. It had been during a mating flight for Nabradia Weyr's primary queen, one of those rare collisions fuelled by a dragon's biological imperative, all mixed up with desperation of the rider. Everyone knew how much a rider could influence their dragon, how much a dragon could influence their rider; V'yne was so ambitious. Ffamran imagined that poor Bahamut could scarcely even focus on all the dragon-style flirting he was supposed to be doing through that flight, overridden by V'yne's desperate need for him to _succeed_.

As son of Draklor's Lord Holder and the current heir, Ffamran had been in the small crowd invited to the mating flight. He had been too young to do much more than admire the dragons, so fast, so _powerful_ , hardly knowing what was happening. He remembered not caring why the flight was happening, only how great it was that he could watch. He remembered Bahamut's last desperate twist, which brought that too big, too slow bronze up against the plummeting dive of Nabradia's queen. Bahamut grabbed from the wrong side up; the queen's wings were shredded by unwise claws, and Bahamut's delicate, curving, beautiful neck had broken.

Ffamran could never forget the sound of that snap. He wished he could forget the sound of V'yne's scream. It went on and on, until the rider was breathless and retching, and it would start again. Bahamut's corpse fell, right towards Nabudis Hold, snarled with the now-flightless, despairing queen, and the cohort of lusty bronzes pursuit in hadn't known what to do.

Two browns had saved that town, Shiva and Alexander, and one bronze too old to feel the urge to mate, Leviathan. Their riders still in the stands, watching, all three dragons caught Bahamut's corpse and the grieving queen on their inner wings, a triad that fell slowly downwards, outer wings extended. The mating flight was still happening, the imperative too strong and Nabradia's queen only lightly wounded. V'yne broke free from the cluster of bronze riders, still screaming, Ffamran watched in bewilderment as the other bronzes descended to the ground, sank into a petty, inglorious brawl. One of them mounted the queen eventually, rutting her into Nabradia's swampy ground like two bloated wherries in the mud.

There were lots of mutters about V'yne's arrogance, after that. How V'yne's Bahamut was scarcely six months into his growth, forced into that flight too young to know what was happening, all because a Weyrleader's role was the prize. The flight had been terrible, and subsequently the queen's clutch held only two eggs, but that wasn't a concern: there were so many dragons now there was hardly room to house them all. But the death of a bronze, so young and so promising. V'yne had flown him too early, tested his dragon too young, V'yne should have waited. V'yne should have known better.

In the aftermath, V'yne couldn't go back to Archades Hold, in shame. He had been third in line for Archades Hold's Lordship, but that hadn't been enough for him. V'yne threw away his right to rule by running off to become a dragonrider. He couldn’t go back to Archades Hold, and so V'yne had come to Ffamran's town, a little satellite village called Draklor.


End file.
